Supreme Court whiffs on anonymous tips

Published: Thursday, May 1, 2014 at 02:29 PM.

Given the danger posed by drunken or reckless drivers, police should follow up on information — even information from an anonymous source — that a vehicle might be careening down a street or threatening other motorists and pedestrians. If they confirm that is the case, they should stop the vehicle.

But that isn’t what happened in a California case decided by the Supreme Court last week. The court’s ruling makes it too easy for police to stop motorists on the basis of an anonymous tip.

In 2008, a 911 dispatch team in Mendocino County received a report that a pickup truck had forced another vehicle off the road, giving rise to a concern that the driver might be drunk. California Highway Patrol officers followed the truck for five miles but observed no sign of drunken or erratic driving. They pulled the car over anyway and, after smelling marijuana, searched the vehicle and found 30 pounds of the drug.

The occupants of the truck argued that the police lacked the “reasonable suspicion” required for a traffic stop. But, writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that the stop was reasonable because the tip was reliable given the “totality of circumstances,” including the fact that the caller identified the truck and its license plate.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said that the majority had undermined precedents holding that anonymous tips must be corroborated before police can act on them. Scalia warned that motorists could now be stopped (and searched) “based upon a phone tip, true or false, of a single instance of careless driving.”

We agree. Anonymous tips constitute a minefield for those tasked with following the information up — whether they be in law enforcement pursuing suspected criminals or journalists working on a story. Callers often become anonymous informants in order to bring misery and woe to an enemy for reasons wholly unrelated to the reasons police were alerted in the first place. It also further opens the door to fishing expeditions, whereby law enforcement officers conduct stops for nebulous reasons then ask to search the vehicles of operators who often feel powerless to deny them access, even though that is their constitutional right. A Times-News story published in 2013 outlined how this practice is sometimes conducted in our community by officers who follow and stop drivers late at night or early in the morning with little or no reasonable suspicion.

Those aren’t the only problems. In a 1990 case in which the court upheld a stop based partly on an anonymous tip, Justice John Paul Stevens worried that a police officer who stopped a suspect might falsely testify that he was acting on anonymous information. Fabrication will be an even greater temptation after last week’s decision.

It’s our hope that Scalia proves to be an alarmist and that lower courts will insist that anonymous tips be extremely detailed and convincing before accepting them as justification for traffic stops that lead to searches and criminal charges. We want police to follow up on tips and make sure the roads and neighborhoods are safe.

But corroborating evidence witnessed by arresting officers should always be the real test. Nothing should be done by police without it.

Parts of this editorial were previously published in the Los Angeles Times.

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Given the danger posed by drunken or reckless drivers, police should follow up on information — even information from an anonymous source — that a vehicle might be careening down a street or threatening other motorists and pedestrians. If they confirm that is the case, they should stop the vehicle.

But that isn’t what happened in a California case decided by the Supreme Court last week. The court’s ruling makes it too easy for police to stop motorists on the basis of an anonymous tip.

In 2008, a 911 dispatch team in Mendocino County received a report that a pickup truck had forced another vehicle off the road, giving rise to a concern that the driver might be drunk. California Highway Patrol officers followed the truck for five miles but observed no sign of drunken or erratic driving. They pulled the car over anyway and, after smelling marijuana, searched the vehicle and found 30 pounds of the drug.

The occupants of the truck argued that the police lacked the “reasonable suspicion” required for a traffic stop. But, writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that the stop was reasonable because the tip was reliable given the “totality of circumstances,” including the fact that the caller identified the truck and its license plate.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said that the majority had undermined precedents holding that anonymous tips must be corroborated before police can act on them. Scalia warned that motorists could now be stopped (and searched) “based upon a phone tip, true or false, of a single instance of careless driving.”

We agree. Anonymous tips constitute a minefield for those tasked with following the information up — whether they be in law enforcement pursuing suspected criminals or journalists working on a story. Callers often become anonymous informants in order to bring misery and woe to an enemy for reasons wholly unrelated to the reasons police were alerted in the first place. It also further opens the door to fishing expeditions, whereby law enforcement officers conduct stops for nebulous reasons then ask to search the vehicles of operators who often feel powerless to deny them access, even though that is their constitutional right. A Times-News story published in 2013 outlined how this practice is sometimes conducted in our community by officers who follow and stop drivers late at night or early in the morning with little or no reasonable suspicion.

Those aren’t the only problems. In a 1990 case in which the court upheld a stop based partly on an anonymous tip, Justice John Paul Stevens worried that a police officer who stopped a suspect might falsely testify that he was acting on anonymous information. Fabrication will be an even greater temptation after last week’s decision.

It’s our hope that Scalia proves to be an alarmist and that lower courts will insist that anonymous tips be extremely detailed and convincing before accepting them as justification for traffic stops that lead to searches and criminal charges. We want police to follow up on tips and make sure the roads and neighborhoods are safe.

But corroborating evidence witnessed by arresting officers should always be the real test. Nothing should be done by police without it.

Parts of this editorial were previously published in the Los Angeles Times.